Sidewinder
A2OC Donor
Hi, I’ve just finished a job on my ATL (90) engined A2 involving clutch kit replacement, cam belt kit, waterpump, shift tower bearing replacement and SM flywheel conversion.
The transmission started to get noisy, clanky and the cluch pedal would vibrate with a small amount of pressure on it, researching on here and other places this looked like the DMF or a clutch component issue (clutch slave cylinder was ok).
I’m lucky to not live far from ex member @JIGSAW here in Norwich and Gary gave me advice that a SMF should be considered, a 3 pot SMF flywheel of course, one from a AMF etc, I saw the flywheel thread by @Menno and I found on Ebay one from a polo, and this was received, wire wheeled to remove light corrosion and cleaned with brake cleaner, sprayed with black paint and the contact surface cleaned back to metal with 100grit to make a nice ready to fit replacement.
Reading the many posts on here especially by @depronman about clutch replacement gave me courage to attempt it and I followed his steps and it worked really well, but Gary had an extra tip to preserve the air air con gas circuit which was to unscrew the air con condenser and rotate it 90 degrees towards the front of the car after dropping the compressor off so it can follow it. I was removing the aux belt anyway to do the cambelt and this was easy and no issue once the front was off.
Tool wise I used a normal socket set, a set of spline, hex and torx bits, and other standard tools, a engine support beam for £39.99, and a £7.99 clutch centring tool were the only tools I bought. The whole thing was done over a week whilst working a full week doing a bit each evening and the pre and post weekends, a stage at a time and I would encourage others to attempt the same without any fear, its not that hard at all, and I’ve learnt so much about how the front of the car comes apart.
I bagged up screws, bolts and poppers etc in bags, labelled such as ‘undertray and wheel arch liners’ and ‘slam panel and radiators’ etc.
In steps: place car on axle stands, Remove undertray, engine cover and wheel arch liners. Remove headlights, bumper skin, crash bars, horn and slam panel plastics around intercooler and radiators.
Disconnect wiring loom from slam panel (air con pressure, rad temp, fog lights, lower water temp sensor, screen wash pump and tube etc) and pull it up into the top of engine bay.
Drain coolant and disconnect rad pipes, intercooler pipes, unscrew flap release plunger, unplug fan cable, disconnect screen wash fill pipe, oil fill pipe, dip stick pipe, remove oil fill point giving access to air inlet pipe screws, disconnect drain cup pipes, unbolt 3 bolts holding air con silver cylinder?.
When the slam panel is free from any connections, support the slam panel and remove fixings, undo 4 screws holding air con condenser and split it from the rad/intercooler panel, supporting both.
Lift and remove both black plastic pegs holding in the rad panel, move slam panel forward and tilt backwards rad/intercooler panel and lift out of rubber lower grommets, then either lift out or slide out sideways to the left, the air con condenser can then be left supported and the slam panel removed.
Undo the aux belt and the 3 bolts holding the compressor and rotate the air con condenser 90 degrees towards you , with the pump, there is a 8” odd rubber pipe that allows this, a pipe support clamp can also be unbolted too to give more ‘flex’.
You then have complete easy access to the engine and box and lots can be easily done, the SM flywheel was fitted with a Luk clutch kit which included the release bearing, new top hat, arm, pivot bolt and spring, all new bolts. As access was so easy a cam belt and WP was done (my 2nd A2 belt in 2 months) and the gearbox tower bearing was replaced (under a fiver from audi).
These videos helped with removing and replacing everything and where to apply moly grease, size of bolts/sockets and tightening torques, I’ve never seen any of Ginas video’s before but they are excellent and with the subtitles/translations, quite amusing ? They are worth a watch even if you are not interested in a clutch change.
and
All went back together with no issues, a few poppers replaced, a few new bolts but nothing hard, I did drain the box and remove the flange (before removal) as @depronman detailed and this helped no end.
After assembly and refill of coolant, gearbox oil, screen wash, the engine was started and coolant system bled of air, engine torsion timing checked with VCDS.
Its been in use a week now and is lovely to drive, quiet, no vibration, light clutch and good performance, it’ll be interesting to long term test it.
Regards
Andy
The transmission started to get noisy, clanky and the cluch pedal would vibrate with a small amount of pressure on it, researching on here and other places this looked like the DMF or a clutch component issue (clutch slave cylinder was ok).
I’m lucky to not live far from ex member @JIGSAW here in Norwich and Gary gave me advice that a SMF should be considered, a 3 pot SMF flywheel of course, one from a AMF etc, I saw the flywheel thread by @Menno and I found on Ebay one from a polo, and this was received, wire wheeled to remove light corrosion and cleaned with brake cleaner, sprayed with black paint and the contact surface cleaned back to metal with 100grit to make a nice ready to fit replacement.
Reading the many posts on here especially by @depronman about clutch replacement gave me courage to attempt it and I followed his steps and it worked really well, but Gary had an extra tip to preserve the air air con gas circuit which was to unscrew the air con condenser and rotate it 90 degrees towards the front of the car after dropping the compressor off so it can follow it. I was removing the aux belt anyway to do the cambelt and this was easy and no issue once the front was off.
Tool wise I used a normal socket set, a set of spline, hex and torx bits, and other standard tools, a engine support beam for £39.99, and a £7.99 clutch centring tool were the only tools I bought. The whole thing was done over a week whilst working a full week doing a bit each evening and the pre and post weekends, a stage at a time and I would encourage others to attempt the same without any fear, its not that hard at all, and I’ve learnt so much about how the front of the car comes apart.
I bagged up screws, bolts and poppers etc in bags, labelled such as ‘undertray and wheel arch liners’ and ‘slam panel and radiators’ etc.
In steps: place car on axle stands, Remove undertray, engine cover and wheel arch liners. Remove headlights, bumper skin, crash bars, horn and slam panel plastics around intercooler and radiators.
Disconnect wiring loom from slam panel (air con pressure, rad temp, fog lights, lower water temp sensor, screen wash pump and tube etc) and pull it up into the top of engine bay.
Drain coolant and disconnect rad pipes, intercooler pipes, unscrew flap release plunger, unplug fan cable, disconnect screen wash fill pipe, oil fill pipe, dip stick pipe, remove oil fill point giving access to air inlet pipe screws, disconnect drain cup pipes, unbolt 3 bolts holding air con silver cylinder?.
When the slam panel is free from any connections, support the slam panel and remove fixings, undo 4 screws holding air con condenser and split it from the rad/intercooler panel, supporting both.
Lift and remove both black plastic pegs holding in the rad panel, move slam panel forward and tilt backwards rad/intercooler panel and lift out of rubber lower grommets, then either lift out or slide out sideways to the left, the air con condenser can then be left supported and the slam panel removed.
Undo the aux belt and the 3 bolts holding the compressor and rotate the air con condenser 90 degrees towards you , with the pump, there is a 8” odd rubber pipe that allows this, a pipe support clamp can also be unbolted too to give more ‘flex’.
You then have complete easy access to the engine and box and lots can be easily done, the SM flywheel was fitted with a Luk clutch kit which included the release bearing, new top hat, arm, pivot bolt and spring, all new bolts. As access was so easy a cam belt and WP was done (my 2nd A2 belt in 2 months) and the gearbox tower bearing was replaced (under a fiver from audi).
These videos helped with removing and replacing everything and where to apply moly grease, size of bolts/sockets and tightening torques, I’ve never seen any of Ginas video’s before but they are excellent and with the subtitles/translations, quite amusing ? They are worth a watch even if you are not interested in a clutch change.
and
All went back together with no issues, a few poppers replaced, a few new bolts but nothing hard, I did drain the box and remove the flange (before removal) as @depronman detailed and this helped no end.
After assembly and refill of coolant, gearbox oil, screen wash, the engine was started and coolant system bled of air, engine torsion timing checked with VCDS.
Its been in use a week now and is lovely to drive, quiet, no vibration, light clutch and good performance, it’ll be interesting to long term test it.
Regards
Andy
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